Vodafone Idea Business Services (VIBS), the enterprise arm of Vodafone Idea, has entered into a partnership with Genus Power Infra to work together on a Proof of Concept (POC) of NB-Internet of Things (IoT) networks. The companies intend to work on a commercial scale.

The firms are conducting advanced trials of NB-IoT enabled energy metres in India, Vodafone Idea said in a statement.

“Narrowband IoT is the next growth engine in the IoT space, which allows greater network coverage, improved battery life of 10 years plus for devices, and the ability to slice and partition the network for specific use case, to make massive IoT deployments commercially viable for enterprises across verticals,” Nick Gliddon, Chief Enterprise Business Officer, Vodafone Idea said.

“With the power of NB-IoT, we look forward to bringing digital transformation in the fields of agriculture, healthcare, utilities (energy, water & gas distribution) and smart city applications,” he added.

Narrowband IoT is the cellular network technology primarily built to connect things. Apart from smart utility metering, NB-IoT enables scalable deployments of various smart city use cases such as smart street lighting and smart parking.

It also promises to benefit agriculture industry in rural areas, giving rise to new crop monitoring systems, automated feeding for crops and herds all helping to shape the connected farm of the future.

Vodafone has earlier launched NB-IoT networks in Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Australia, Netherlands and South Africa among other countries.